Deputy leadership election, conference and PR – Ann Black’s Labour NEC report

The best place to judge the success of any conference is actually from outside the bubble, in the real world and in the mainstream and social media.  Below I’ve included NEC notes, a few personal impressions and an update on the deputy leadership contest, but I am keen to hear from members following from home as well as those in Liverpool.  Personally I am not sure it was wise to make it all about Nigel – I was reminded of the Oscar Wilde quote:  “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” and I would hate for him to be happy with all the attention.

All sessions are available on YouTube and I’ve attached the national policy forum report and the conference arrangements committee reports (CAC 1, CAC 1 Addendum, CAC 2, CAC 2 Addendum, CAC 3 and CAC 4).  These contain motions, including two emergency motions on the Middle East, and results of card votes and committee elections.  I will add the NEC report, with the accounts, when I track it down.

NEC Meeting, 27 September 2025

This was a short meeting as all rule changes were agreed at previous meetings (see reports from 22 July 2025 and 16 September 2025).  The amendment from North Herefordshire on selections had gone away and the proposal from Leyton & Wanstead on online balloting was withdrawn.  The NEC clarified that youth representatives on the national policy forum would be elected by all delegates aged under 27 within each region, based on their youth membership.  That may still amount to less than 20% of the electorate, though sadly so do one-member-one-vote ballots these days.  An amendment to fill casual vacancies in the NEC socialist societies section should be brought forward next year.

Following up another query it seems that CLPs were only told they could refer back bits of the NPF report after the deadline:  just four references were received, all from Sutton & Cheam CLP, following dogged pursuit by their chair.  Hopefully this will be remedied in 2026.

Deputy Leadership

I remain puzzled that on 23 September CLPs suddenly lost Organise access to email addresses, phone numbers and downloads and were told that “During this internal election, member calling, list exports and the ability to view personal details will not be available in Organise.”   This left them unable to validate members registering on Zoom for nomination meetings.  Full functionality was restored on 26 September with no explanation of who authorised the restrictions and who rescinded them.  Weird.  I’ve also heard of CLP-level quorums as low as ten members or 3%, and from other local parties where regions are less flexible, leaving them unable to nominate.  Maybe there should be more consistency.

But these issues can wait as we move to the ballot, and I urge all members and affiliated supporters to vote before the contest closes on Thursday 23 October 2025.  The hustings held at conference can be viewed here.  Ballots will be issued from Wednesday 8 October, with electronic ballots expected by Monday 13 October and postal ballots by Wednesday 15 October.  More information is here – please call 0345 092 22 99 with any problems, especially if your email address may be out of date or you are voting by post.

Annual Conference 28 September / 1 October 2025

This was my 31st conference, and the first that did not open with an address from the NEC chair.  Instead, after a civic welcome we moved straight to the daughter of one of the 97 Hillsborough victims who thanked Keir Starmer for fulfilling his promise of a Hillsborough law, and singing You’ll Never Walk Alone.

Later Keir introduced Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, who gave a warm and supportive address.  The treasurer Mike Payne presented the accounts, and conference debated constitutional amendments.  The key differences were over Labour group observers:  some delegates argued that they gain valuable understanding of council work and become motivated to stand as candidates, while others felt that confidentiality was absolute and they should all be barred.  Peter Mason, in the chair, said that every Labour group should feed back directly, but this is challenging when whole constituencies have no elected councillors and Labour holds only three or four out of nearly 100 seats.  There was more agreement on allowing internal committee members and party staff to stand as candidates, helping to field full Labour slates.  Overall the NEC’s constitutional amendments were comfortably endorsed by both halves of conference and the constituency amendments were rejected.

Cabinet speeches were high quality, and Keir Starmer’s was well received:  he told the NEC that this was the speech he had wanted to make.  My only reservations are about how they landed outside the hall:  were there enough feelgood announcements and snappy soundbites, and what will people remember?  Rachel Reeves riffed effectively on “Never let anyone tell you that there’s no difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government”, but now has to fend off months of budget speculation.

Moving On

Many mourned Angela Rayner’s absence, and Wes Streeting and others paid warm tributes from the platform.  She was right to stay away and not create distractions but her energy, commitment to workers’ rights and general joie de vivre left a huge gap.  This left the media free to pursue Andy Burnham, and their mass arrival at a fringe meeting on proportional representation prompted Laura Parker, the mistress of ceremonies, to say that she had never seen so many people so interested in STV.  However after Andy’s wide-ranging speech on collaborative politics, housing, the bond market, poverty and the climate of fear in the Labour party they all departed.  In my more modest contribution I made three points:

–           first, there is no time to lose.  A year ago supporters said that PR is a second term project.  We will work for a second term, but it is not guaranteed.  We cannot even wait for May 2026 and elections in Wales, Scotland, London and England, any of which may go wrong.  We risk approaching the next general election with the same tacit deals as 2024:  where I live, the LibDems leave us alone in Banbury and Oxford East and we give them a free hand in the rest of Oxfordshire.  It is time to be honest;

–           second, people will not vote for PR as an end in itself, but only if they see it as a means to gain homes, jobs, health, energy, transport, security.  Unless fair votes are linked to the cost of living we will fail;

–           third, the all-party parliamentary group on fair elections may be the largest APPG but it has no profile outside Westminster.  A national commission on electoral reform needs public faces who will do for PR what Kim Leadbeater did for the assisted dying bill.  For or against, no-one can deny that she is effective in getting it onto the agenda.  PR needs visible spokespersons, and fast.

I also attended policy commission seminars on families, a chance for delegates to talk frankly to ministers.  I asked about carer’s allowance:  where a carer earns more than the threshold, could the excess be clawed back rather than the whole amount?  I was told this is being looked at, but the IT systems are complicated.  And even if the two-child limit is scrapped, unless the cap on total household benefits is also modified many families will expect to be better off and then find that they are not, with hopes raised then dashed.

NEC Meeting, 30 September 2025

This was the AGM at the close of conference where the NEC welcomes new members, thanks those who have left, and elects officers for the year ahead.  Keir Starmer paid tribute to the departed and praised Ellie Reeves for her year as chair, a role which she first expected to assume in 2016.  Instead after losing her NEC seat she accepted disappointment with grace and character and developed her legal and political career before being welcomed back in 2023.  She was succeeded by vice-chair Shabana Mahmood who was elected unopposed.  Peter Wheeler was then nominated for vice-chair and also elected unopposed.

Postscript

Behind the scenes some members queried the order of progression, as Peter was only elected to represent councillors last year.  For decades custom and practice was that the NEC member with the longest continuous service was elected as vice-chair, and then chair the following year.  That convention held with minor variations through to 2016 when it began to break down along factional lines, and it fractured completely in 2019.  A major factor was that Momentum would never accept Margaret Beckett as vice-chair or chair, despite her role in nominating Jeremy Corbyn for leader, and she was bypassed four times.  Another attempt at queue-jumping narrowly failed in 2018, but in 2019 Ian Murray of the FBU was elected vice-chair two years after joining the NEC and overtaking ten longer-serving members.

I was away from the NEC at the time, but when I returned in November 2020 two principles were now in conflict:  the vice-chair moves up to chair, but longer-serving members cannot be denied.  By then the factional balance had shifted, nearly half the NEC walked out and Margaret was elected chair, with Alice Perry as vice-chair.  I reported:  “Following the fracas the NEC agreed that custom and practice regarding the election of the vice-chair and chair should be explicitly included in NEC procedures, and also that seniority should be based on total years on the NEC rather than continuous years, which will be fairer to constituency representatives whose service is more often interrupted.”

This is not yet in writing, but the provision for total years rather than continuity is the key.  Peter Wheeler left the NEC in 2014 after eight years as a constituency representative (2004 to 2010, and 2012 to 2014) and returned as a local government representative in 2024, giving nine years in total.  Next year Ian Murray will have nine years’ service, and his patience and loyalty should finally be rewarded.   We shall see.

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